Will Whoop Get a Whatch?

Fitness wearable company Whoop announced a major software update Tuesday that will finally allow users to learn the time while preserving Whoop’s core commitment to not making a watch.

“We know our users want to check the time,” said Whoop Head of Product Ty Ming. “But we also know that they have chosen a product whose entire brand identity depends on not helping them do that.”

The new Whoop 5.0 will feature a tiny, high-fidelity speaker that tells users the time out loud whenever its onboard AI agent detects the wrist rotation commonly associated with checking a watch.

“Instead of glancing down and seeing 3:17, the user can rotate their wrist and hear the device announce ‘Fifteen seventeen Coordinated Universal Time’ in a clear, motivational voice,” Ming explained. “We think that preserves the essential Whoop experience, which is needing another product to fully use and understand the first product.”

For users in quiet environments, Whoop will offer a discreet mode in which the band rapidly vibrates the time in Morse code. A second mode, called Time Nearby, sends a notification to the user’s phone explaining that they appear to be wondering what time it is. “From there, the user can simply remove their phone from their pocket, unlock it, dismiss the Whoop notification, and look at the clock,” Ming said. “We see this as a major reduction in friction.”

The rollout will be phased. At launch, the speaker will only announce the time from Whoop’s UTC server, regardless of the user’s actual location. “We want athletes to feel connected to the global performance community,” Ming said. “Localized time and daylight savings are on the roadmap for H2 2028 and H2 2029, respectively.”

Whoop said future versions may include a built-in AI coach that can gently ask why the user needs to know the time so badly.